An RFP for a Shopify reservations system for a family entertainment chain

In a family entertainment business with a restaurant, the reservation is the first touchpoint of the visit: the family picks a date, a time, and what they want included, and expects everything to be ready when they arrive. A reservations system touches online sales, each location's operations, and the customer experience all at once.

A family entertainment and restaurant chain needed a reservations system that would run on Shopify. Before asking for proposals, it had to address what usually goes wrong in this kind of purchase:

• Requirements that live in each team's head. Marketing, operations, and IT have different expectations, and if they aren't written down, each vendor interprets them its own way.

• Proposals that can't be compared. When each vendor describes a different scope, the decision ends up resting on price or on the best pitch.

• Underestimated integration. A reservations system on top of a commerce platform has to work alongside it: products, payments, customers, and notifications.

• Criteria that show up at the end. If the criteria for choosing are set after seeing the proposals, they bend to fit the favorite.

In 2024, AVILA® prepared the request for proposals (RFP) for the reservations system on Shopify. An RFP is the document a company uses to tell vendors what it needs, how they should respond, and how it will decide. Done well, it turns a technology purchase into a fair comparison.

How AVILA® builds an RFP

• Context and scope. Who the company is, what problem it wants to solve, and what's in and out of the project, so every vendor starts from the same place.

• Requirements. What the system must do and the conditions it must operate under, written down and prioritized to separate the essentials from the nice-to-haves.

• Platform integration. How the solution must work with the existing platform, in this case Shopify, and what's expected of each side.

• A common response format. The same sections and the same questions for everyone, so proposals are compared on the same scope.

• Evaluation criteria. Set before any proposals arrive: what will be scored and how much each aspect weighs.

• Process rules. Timeline, how to submit questions and clarifications, and what each proposal must include.

An unbiased method

An RFP is only as good as the person who writes it. AVILA® doesn't partner with the vendors of the platforms it evaluates, so requirements and criteria reflect the client's needs rather than a vendor's. The same principle guides other selection processes, such as the selection of a foreign trade information platform or ERP selection and implementation in manufacturing.

An RFP doesn't pick the vendor, but it does set the rules for picking one. If your company is about to hire a system or platform, see ERP, CRM, and MRP selection or talk to us.